Emma E. A. Cohen
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195323351
- eISBN:
- 9780199785575
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195323351.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
The Mind Possessed examines spirit concepts and mediumistic practices from a cognitive scientific perspective. Drawing primarily, but not exclusively, from ethnographic data collected ...
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The Mind Possessed examines spirit concepts and mediumistic practices from a cognitive scientific perspective. Drawing primarily, but not exclusively, from ethnographic data collected during eighteen months of fieldwork in Belém, northern Brazil, this book combines fine‐grained description and analysis of mediumistic activities in an Afro‐Brazilian cult house with a scientific account of the emergence and the spread of the tradition's core concepts. The book develops a novel theoretical approach to questions that are of central importance to the scientific study of transmission of culture, particularly concepts of spirits, spirit healing, and spirit possession. Making a radical departure from established anthropological, medicalist, and sociological analyses of spirit phenomena, the book looks instead to instructive insights from the cognitive sciences and offers a set of testable hypotheses concerning the spread and appeal of spirit concepts and possession activities. Predictions and claims are grounded in the data collected and sourced in specific ethnographic contexts. The data presented open new lines of enquiry for the cognitive science of religion (a rapidly growing field of interdisciplinary scholarship) and challenge the existing but outdated theoretical frameworks within which spirit possession practices have traditionally been understood.Less
The Mind Possessed examines spirit concepts and mediumistic practices from a cognitive scientific perspective. Drawing primarily, but not exclusively, from ethnographic data collected during eighteen months of fieldwork in Belém, northern Brazil, this book combines fine‐grained description and analysis of mediumistic activities in an Afro‐Brazilian cult house with a scientific account of the emergence and the spread of the tradition's core concepts. The book develops a novel theoretical approach to questions that are of central importance to the scientific study of transmission of culture, particularly concepts of spirits, spirit healing, and spirit possession. Making a radical departure from established anthropological, medicalist, and sociological analyses of spirit phenomena, the book looks instead to instructive insights from the cognitive sciences and offers a set of testable hypotheses concerning the spread and appeal of spirit concepts and possession activities. Predictions and claims are grounded in the data collected and sourced in specific ethnographic contexts. The data presented open new lines of enquiry for the cognitive science of religion (a rapidly growing field of interdisciplinary scholarship) and challenge the existing but outdated theoretical frameworks within which spirit possession practices have traditionally been understood.
Todd Tremlin
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195305340
- eISBN:
- 9780199784721
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195305345.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
This book provides an introduction to the cognitive science of religion, a new discipline of study that explains the origins and persistence of religious ideas and behavior on the basis of evolved ...
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This book provides an introduction to the cognitive science of religion, a new discipline of study that explains the origins and persistence of religious ideas and behavior on the basis of evolved mental structures and functions of the human brain. Belief in gods and the social formation of religion have their genesis in biology — in powerful, often hidden, processes of cognition that all humans share. Arguing that we cannot understand what we think until we first understand how we think, the book describes ways in which evolution by natural selection molded the modern human mind, resulting in mental modularity, innate intelligences, and species-typical modes of thought. The book details many of the adapted features of the brain — agent detection, theory of mind, social cognition, and others — focusing on how mental endowments inherited from our ancestral past lead people to naturally entertain religious ideas, such as the god concepts that are ubiquitous the world over. In addition to introducing the major themes, theories, and thinkers in the cognitive science of religion, the book also advances the current discussion by moving beyond explanations for individual religious beliefs and behaviors to the operation of culture and religious systems. Drawing on dual-process models of cognition developed in social psychology, the book argues that the same cognitive constraints that shape human thought also work as a selective force on the content and durability of religions.Less
This book provides an introduction to the cognitive science of religion, a new discipline of study that explains the origins and persistence of religious ideas and behavior on the basis of evolved mental structures and functions of the human brain. Belief in gods and the social formation of religion have their genesis in biology — in powerful, often hidden, processes of cognition that all humans share. Arguing that we cannot understand what we think until we first understand how we think, the book describes ways in which evolution by natural selection molded the modern human mind, resulting in mental modularity, innate intelligences, and species-typical modes of thought. The book details many of the adapted features of the brain — agent detection, theory of mind, social cognition, and others — focusing on how mental endowments inherited from our ancestral past lead people to naturally entertain religious ideas, such as the god concepts that are ubiquitous the world over. In addition to introducing the major themes, theories, and thinkers in the cognitive science of religion, the book also advances the current discussion by moving beyond explanations for individual religious beliefs and behaviors to the operation of culture and religious systems. Drawing on dual-process models of cognition developed in social psychology, the book argues that the same cognitive constraints that shape human thought also work as a selective force on the content and durability of religions.
Elaine Howard Ecklund
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195392982
- eISBN:
- 9780199777105
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195392982.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
In this chapter, Ecklund moves beyond classrooms and universities to explore how scientists see themselves addressing religion-science controversies in their interactions with the rest of the U.S. ...
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In this chapter, Ecklund moves beyond classrooms and universities to explore how scientists see themselves addressing religion-science controversies in their interactions with the rest of the U.S. populace. Ecklund synthesizes the voices of scientists themselves as they comment on their roles in shaping public understanding of the relationship between science and religion. If dialogue is the goal, she argues, scientists first need to develop a more intricate language and set of frameworks for religion and for the relationship between religion and science—regardless of whether they personally identify with a religious tradition. Ecklund examines both the impediments to scientists actively engaging the public at possible science-religion intersections and sheds light on some of the best practices in which individual scientists are already engaged.Less
In this chapter, Ecklund moves beyond classrooms and universities to explore how scientists see themselves addressing religion-science controversies in their interactions with the rest of the U.S. populace. Ecklund synthesizes the voices of scientists themselves as they comment on their roles in shaping public understanding of the relationship between science and religion. If dialogue is the goal, she argues, scientists first need to develop a more intricate language and set of frameworks for religion and for the relationship between religion and science—regardless of whether they personally identify with a religious tradition. Ecklund examines both the impediments to scientists actively engaging the public at possible science-religion intersections and sheds light on some of the best practices in which individual scientists are already engaged.
Andrew C. Dole
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195341171
- eISBN:
- 9780199866908
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195341171.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter summarizes the results of the reconstruction of Schleiermacher's account of religion and applies this reconstruction to contemporary discussions of Schleiermacher and of the study of ...
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This chapter summarizes the results of the reconstruction of Schleiermacher's account of religion and applies this reconstruction to contemporary discussions of Schleiermacher and of the study of religion. Following a set of answers to the question “what is religion according to Schleiermacher?” the chapter discusses three themes in Schleiermacher interpretation. The first of these has to do with how religion originates historically; the second, with the relationship between religion and politics; and the third, with religion as an object of study. Finally, the chapter argues that Schleiermacher should be regarded as a patron of the academic study of religion during a time when its future was in doubt and argues further that attempts to apply the benefits of the study of religion to the public sphere stand in continuity with the practical component of Schleiermacher's theology.Less
This chapter summarizes the results of the reconstruction of Schleiermacher's account of religion and applies this reconstruction to contemporary discussions of Schleiermacher and of the study of religion. Following a set of answers to the question “what is religion according to Schleiermacher?” the chapter discusses three themes in Schleiermacher interpretation. The first of these has to do with how religion originates historically; the second, with the relationship between religion and politics; and the third, with religion as an object of study. Finally, the chapter argues that Schleiermacher should be regarded as a patron of the academic study of religion during a time when its future was in doubt and argues further that attempts to apply the benefits of the study of religion to the public sphere stand in continuity with the practical component of Schleiermacher's theology.
Elaine Howard Ecklund
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195392982
- eISBN:
- 9780199777105
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195392982.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
In the last chapter of Science Vs. Religion, Ecklund trades her scholar’s hood for the robe of an arbitrator. She directly points out how some of the assumptions of the present religion-science ...
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In the last chapter of Science Vs. Religion, Ecklund trades her scholar’s hood for the robe of an arbitrator. She directly points out how some of the assumptions of the present religion-science debates simply do not hold up under the weight of research data. She then offers possible recommendations for other scientists and religious people who share her goal of productive dialogue.Less
In the last chapter of Science Vs. Religion, Ecklund trades her scholar’s hood for the robe of an arbitrator. She directly points out how some of the assumptions of the present religion-science debates simply do not hold up under the weight of research data. She then offers possible recommendations for other scientists and religious people who share her goal of productive dialogue.
Andrew Witmer
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195342536
- eISBN:
- 9780199867042
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195342536.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
During the second half of the nineteenth century, American intellectuals found much to argue over in the writings of Auguste Comte. A French social theorist generally credited as the founder of ...
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During the second half of the nineteenth century, American intellectuals found much to argue over in the writings of Auguste Comte. A French social theorist generally credited as the founder of modern sociology, Comte grounded his Positivist philosophy in a theory of history predicting the demise of theism and the triumph of naturalistic science and humanistic religion. Debates over Positivism peaked in the United States between the 1860s and 1880s, and became entangled with arguments over Darwinism and the alleged battle between religion and science. Most Americans dismissed Comte's predictions that belief in God would vanish, but his theories won over a small group of important thinkers, clothed Enlightenment attacks on traditional religion in the garb of scientific neutrality and historical inevitability, spurred on the academic secularizers who sought to reduce religion's public influence, and emerged during the middle decades of the twentieth century as a commonplace of modern sociology.Less
During the second half of the nineteenth century, American intellectuals found much to argue over in the writings of Auguste Comte. A French social theorist generally credited as the founder of modern sociology, Comte grounded his Positivist philosophy in a theory of history predicting the demise of theism and the triumph of naturalistic science and humanistic religion. Debates over Positivism peaked in the United States between the 1860s and 1880s, and became entangled with arguments over Darwinism and the alleged battle between religion and science. Most Americans dismissed Comte's predictions that belief in God would vanish, but his theories won over a small group of important thinkers, clothed Enlightenment attacks on traditional religion in the garb of scientific neutrality and historical inevitability, spurred on the academic secularizers who sought to reduce religion's public influence, and emerged during the middle decades of the twentieth century as a commonplace of modern sociology.
Benjamin D Koen
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195367744
- eISBN:
- 9780199867295
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195367744.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Chapter 1 sets a new paradigm of research and applied practice based on the ontology of oneness; introduces medical ethnomusicology; lays a foundation for the study of music, health, and healing ...
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Chapter 1 sets a new paradigm of research and applied practice based on the ontology of oneness; introduces medical ethnomusicology; lays a foundation for the study of music, health, and healing through the harmony of science and religion; introduces music-prayer-meditation dynamics, neuroplasticity, cognitive flexibility, entrainment, holistic embodiment (or embeingment), and the Human Certainty Principle as culture-transcendent processes and principles that undergird musical healing; challenges moral and cultural relativism, focusing on the importance of applied work to benefit the whole of humanity; introduces maddâh devotional music and the culture of Badakhshan, Tajikistan as the primary cultural example of musical healing. Core theoretical and philosophical frameworks are established that draw on local beliefs and practices, ethnomusicology, health science, neuro- and cognitive science, and quantum physics.Less
Chapter 1 sets a new paradigm of research and applied practice based on the ontology of oneness; introduces medical ethnomusicology; lays a foundation for the study of music, health, and healing through the harmony of science and religion; introduces music-prayer-meditation dynamics, neuroplasticity, cognitive flexibility, entrainment, holistic embodiment (or embeingment), and the Human Certainty Principle as culture-transcendent processes and principles that undergird musical healing; challenges moral and cultural relativism, focusing on the importance of applied work to benefit the whole of humanity; introduces maddâh devotional music and the culture of Badakhshan, Tajikistan as the primary cultural example of musical healing. Core theoretical and philosophical frameworks are established that draw on local beliefs and practices, ethnomusicology, health science, neuro- and cognitive science, and quantum physics.
Edward B. Davis
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195170382
- eISBN:
- 9780199835669
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195170385.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This essay argues that the history of science and faith is not one of ongoing conflict. While earlier historiographers like Andrew Dickson White portrayed a triumphal science engaged in “warfare” ...
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This essay argues that the history of science and faith is not one of ongoing conflict. While earlier historiographers like Andrew Dickson White portrayed a triumphal science engaged in “warfare” with theology, that view has been largely replaced by a much more nuanced story of mutual influence. Davis concludes that historians of science, whether Christians or not, largely share the same goal: to document the complexity of this story without prejudicing the case either for or against faith.Less
This essay argues that the history of science and faith is not one of ongoing conflict. While earlier historiographers like Andrew Dickson White portrayed a triumphal science engaged in “warfare” with theology, that view has been largely replaced by a much more nuanced story of mutual influence. Davis concludes that historians of science, whether Christians or not, largely share the same goal: to document the complexity of this story without prejudicing the case either for or against faith.
Ann Thomson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199236190
- eISBN:
- 9780191717161
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199236190.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas, European Modern History
This chapter situates the book's subject in relation to current debates and provides a methodological and historiographical overview of the various questions studied. It looks at interpretations of ...
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This chapter situates the book's subject in relation to current debates and provides a methodological and historiographical overview of the various questions studied. It looks at interpretations of the Enlightenment(s) and in particular the ‘Radical Enlightenment’, irreligious thought, secularization, and the link between religion and science. It discusses the literature on 18th‐century materialism in order to bring out the limitations of attempts to trace purely intellectual filiations, often from a finalistic perspective, which play down the theological and political preoccupations underlying certain debates and concentrate too exclusively on French materialism in the second half of the 18th century. It also questions certain labels applied to thinkers of the period and pleads for a more complex understandingof issues and motives.Less
This chapter situates the book's subject in relation to current debates and provides a methodological and historiographical overview of the various questions studied. It looks at interpretations of the Enlightenment(s) and in particular the ‘Radical Enlightenment’, irreligious thought, secularization, and the link between religion and science. It discusses the literature on 18th‐century materialism in order to bring out the limitations of attempts to trace purely intellectual filiations, often from a finalistic perspective, which play down the theological and political preoccupations underlying certain debates and concentrate too exclusively on French materialism in the second half of the 18th century. It also questions certain labels applied to thinkers of the period and pleads for a more complex understandingof issues and motives.
Stephen C. Barton and David Wilkinson (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195383355
- eISBN:
- 9780199870561
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195383355.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, History of Christianity
In the ongoing, often fraught dialogue in the West between science and religion, the interpretation of the accounts of creation in the book of Genesis has often been contentious. Coinciding with the ...
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In the ongoing, often fraught dialogue in the West between science and religion, the interpretation of the accounts of creation in the book of Genesis has often been contentious. Coinciding with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, the thirteen chapters in this book make a contribution to the dialogue by offering multidisciplinary perspectives on the interpretation of Genesis after Darwin. With essays by specialists in biblical studies, theology, hermeneutics, science, the history of science, and the social sciences, the volume as a whole shows that Genesis expresses truth about the world in its own unique way and that, in relation to questions about the meaning of life at a time of moral and ecological crisis, it is a book that speaks still today. Instead of confining Genesis to the cultural margins, the suggestion is offered that the Darwinian controversies may actually free contemporary readers for a more authentic dialogue between the text of Genesis and the discoveries of evolutionary cosmology and biology.Less
In the ongoing, often fraught dialogue in the West between science and religion, the interpretation of the accounts of creation in the book of Genesis has often been contentious. Coinciding with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, the thirteen chapters in this book make a contribution to the dialogue by offering multidisciplinary perspectives on the interpretation of Genesis after Darwin. With essays by specialists in biblical studies, theology, hermeneutics, science, the history of science, and the social sciences, the volume as a whole shows that Genesis expresses truth about the world in its own unique way and that, in relation to questions about the meaning of life at a time of moral and ecological crisis, it is a book that speaks still today. Instead of confining Genesis to the cultural margins, the suggestion is offered that the Darwinian controversies may actually free contemporary readers for a more authentic dialogue between the text of Genesis and the discoveries of evolutionary cosmology and biology.
Gordon Graham
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199265961
- eISBN:
- 9780191708756
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199265961.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
This chapter traces the rise of the ‘science of religion’ and traces its impact on painting and the visual arts. It focuses on the surrealist movement and argues that its attempt to depict a ...
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This chapter traces the rise of the ‘science of religion’ and traces its impact on painting and the visual arts. It focuses on the surrealist movement and argues that its attempt to depict a mysteriously irrational reality fails.Less
This chapter traces the rise of the ‘science of religion’ and traces its impact on painting and the visual arts. It focuses on the surrealist movement and argues that its attempt to depict a mysteriously irrational reality fails.
Christine Rosen
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195156799
- eISBN:
- 9780199835218
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019515679X.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Preaching Eugenics tells the story of a heretofore-unexamined group of eugenics enthusiasts in the early half of the 20th century: American religious leaders. It describes how ...
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Preaching Eugenics tells the story of a heretofore-unexamined group of eugenics enthusiasts in the early half of the 20th century: American religious leaders. It describes how Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish leaders adapted to, rejected, and, in many cases, enthusiastically embraced eugenics-a movement emblematic of modern science and progressive thought in the early 20th century. Facing new challenges from scientists and intellectuals, adapting to the dramatic social changes wrought by immigration and urbanization, and often internally riven by doctrinal controversies among modernists, liberals, and fundamentalists, leaders of churches and synagogues in the early 20th century found themselves forced to defend their faiths on numerous fronts. Preaching Eugenics describes these challenges through an exploration of religious leaders’ confrontation with eugenics. Many religious leaders embraced eugenics, often arriving at their support through their involvement with other social reform movements, including campaigns to sterilize the “feebleminded” in the states; new efforts by the state to regulate marriage; the birth control movement; efforts to combat “social evils” such as venereal disease; and the movement to restrict immigration. The book draws on a wide range of sources: the records of the American Eugenics Society; religious and scientific books and periodicals of the day; and the personal papers of religious leaders such as Rev. John Haynes Holmes, Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, Rev. John M. Cooper, Rev. John A. Ryan, biologist Charles Davenport and Yale geographer Ellsworth Huntington. In a period when religion and science were engaged in critical dialogue and in bitter feuds, the story of how religious leaders confronted one of the era’s newest “sciences,” eugenics, offers insight into the history of ideas and the history of religion in the early 20th century.Less
Preaching Eugenics tells the story of a heretofore-unexamined group of eugenics enthusiasts in the early half of the 20th century: American religious leaders. It describes how Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish leaders adapted to, rejected, and, in many cases, enthusiastically embraced eugenics-a movement emblematic of modern science and progressive thought in the early 20th century. Facing new challenges from scientists and intellectuals, adapting to the dramatic social changes wrought by immigration and urbanization, and often internally riven by doctrinal controversies among modernists, liberals, and fundamentalists, leaders of churches and synagogues in the early 20th century found themselves forced to defend their faiths on numerous fronts. Preaching Eugenics describes these challenges through an exploration of religious leaders’ confrontation with eugenics. Many religious leaders embraced eugenics, often arriving at their support through their involvement with other social reform movements, including campaigns to sterilize the “feebleminded” in the states; new efforts by the state to regulate marriage; the birth control movement; efforts to combat “social evils” such as venereal disease; and the movement to restrict immigration. The book draws on a wide range of sources: the records of the American Eugenics Society; religious and scientific books and periodicals of the day; and the personal papers of religious leaders such as Rev. John Haynes Holmes, Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, Rev. John M. Cooper, Rev. John A. Ryan, biologist Charles Davenport and Yale geographer Ellsworth Huntington. In a period when religion and science were engaged in critical dialogue and in bitter feuds, the story of how religious leaders confronted one of the era’s newest “sciences,” eugenics, offers insight into the history of ideas and the history of religion in the early 20th century.
Ryan D. Tweney
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199730421
- eISBN:
- 9780199949557
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199730421.003.0012
- Subject:
- Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
Religious beliefs can have a complex effect on the ease or difficulty of learning about evolution, echoing the complex historical tension between religion and science. Recent research on the ...
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Religious beliefs can have a complex effect on the ease or difficulty of learning about evolution, echoing the complex historical tension between religion and science. Recent research on the counterintuitive nature of religious concepts and on the complex epistemologies of science is reviewed, and the considerations applied to the understanding of the ‘evolution challenge’.Less
Religious beliefs can have a complex effect on the ease or difficulty of learning about evolution, echoing the complex historical tension between religion and science. Recent research on the counterintuitive nature of religious concepts and on the complex epistemologies of science is reviewed, and the considerations applied to the understanding of the ‘evolution challenge’.
Richard S Weiss
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195335231
- eISBN:
- 9780199868803
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335231.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
This book illuminates the present success of traditional doctors by examining the ways that siddha medical practitioners in Tamil south India have won the trust and patronage of patients. While ...
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This book illuminates the present success of traditional doctors by examining the ways that siddha medical practitioners in Tamil south India have won the trust and patronage of patients. While biomedicine might alleviate a patient’s physical distress, siddha doctors offer their clientele much more: affiliation to a timeless and pure community, the fantasy of a Tamil utopia, and even the prospect of immortality. They speak of a golden age of Tamil civilization and of traditional medicine, drawing on broader revivalist formulations of a pure and ancient Tamil community. This work illuminates the lives, vocations, and aspirations of these traditional doctors, documenting the challenges they face in the modern world. It demonstrates that medical authority is based not only on physical effectiveness, but also on imaginative processes that relate to personal and social identities; conceptions of history, secrecy, and loss; and utopian promise. Drawing from ethnographic data; premodern Tamil texts on medicine, alchemy, and yoga; government archival resources; college textbooks; and popular literature on siddha medicine and on the siddhar yogis, this book presents a study of a traditional system of knowledge that serves the medical needs of millions of Indians. It is more than a local study, however, analyzing the political and religious dimensions of medical discourse and authority in our modern world.Less
This book illuminates the present success of traditional doctors by examining the ways that siddha medical practitioners in Tamil south India have won the trust and patronage of patients. While biomedicine might alleviate a patient’s physical distress, siddha doctors offer their clientele much more: affiliation to a timeless and pure community, the fantasy of a Tamil utopia, and even the prospect of immortality. They speak of a golden age of Tamil civilization and of traditional medicine, drawing on broader revivalist formulations of a pure and ancient Tamil community. This work illuminates the lives, vocations, and aspirations of these traditional doctors, documenting the challenges they face in the modern world. It demonstrates that medical authority is based not only on physical effectiveness, but also on imaginative processes that relate to personal and social identities; conceptions of history, secrecy, and loss; and utopian promise. Drawing from ethnographic data; premodern Tamil texts on medicine, alchemy, and yoga; government archival resources; college textbooks; and popular literature on siddha medicine and on the siddhar yogis, this book presents a study of a traditional system of knowledge that serves the medical needs of millions of Indians. It is more than a local study, however, analyzing the political and religious dimensions of medical discourse and authority in our modern world.
Alvin Plantinga
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199557028
- eISBN:
- 9780191701719
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199557028.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter discusses what or how religious people (specifically Christians) should think about socio-biology or evolutionary psychology, given the conflict between the theories and beliefs of these ...
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This chapter discusses what or how religious people (specifically Christians) should think about socio-biology or evolutionary psychology, given the conflict between the theories and beliefs of these disciplines. It starts with evolutionary psychology, and examples of theories that seem to be deeply problematic from a Christian perspective. It continues by presenting answers on why scientists come up with theories that conflict with Christian belief, why they are considered as defeaters for Christian belief, and what they should do in order to compensate for these happenings.Less
This chapter discusses what or how religious people (specifically Christians) should think about socio-biology or evolutionary psychology, given the conflict between the theories and beliefs of these disciplines. It starts with evolutionary psychology, and examples of theories that seem to be deeply problematic from a Christian perspective. It continues by presenting answers on why scientists come up with theories that conflict with Christian belief, why they are considered as defeaters for Christian belief, and what they should do in order to compensate for these happenings.
Aviad Kleinberg
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231174701
- eISBN:
- 9780231540247
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231174701.003.0013
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
Where we say goodbye to the author and to his Author.
Where we say goodbye to the author and to his Author.
Sanford Schwartz
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195374728
- eISBN:
- 9780199871506
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195374728.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
This study of C. S. Lewis’s popular Space Trilogy—Out of the Silent Planet (1938), Perelandra (1943), and That Hideous Strength (1945)—departs from the prevailing emphasis upon Lewis’s affection for ...
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This study of C. S. Lewis’s popular Space Trilogy—Out of the Silent Planet (1938), Perelandra (1943), and That Hideous Strength (1945)—departs from the prevailing emphasis upon Lewis’s affection for the “Medieval Model” of the universe and situates Lewis’s work in the context of modern intellectual, cultural, and political history. It demonstrates that Lewis did not simply dismiss the modern “Developmental Model,” as is often assumed, but discriminated carefully among different kinds of evolutionary theory and the manner in which they influenced modern thinking about human nature, social practice, and religious conviction. It also shows that the “unfallen” imaginary worlds that Lewis constructs on Mars and Venus are derived not only from classical and medieval sources but also from the transfiguration or “taking up” of the same modern evolutionary paradigm he is ostensibly putting down. This perspective on the Space Trilogy (an appendix is devoted to the abortive “Dark Tower”) brings out the enduring relevance of Lewis’s “scientific romances” to contemporary concerns on a wide variety of issues, including our relations to the natural world and the other species with whom we share Earth, the ethical and political problems surrounding the emerging revolution in bio-technology, and the seemingly intractable struggle between religious and naturalistic worldviews in the twenty-first century. Far from a simple struggle between an old-fashioned Christian humanism and a newfangled heresy, Lewis’s Space Trilogy is the searching effort of a modern religious apologist to sustain and enrich the former through critical engagement with the latter.Less
This study of C. S. Lewis’s popular Space Trilogy—Out of the Silent Planet (1938), Perelandra (1943), and That Hideous Strength (1945)—departs from the prevailing emphasis upon Lewis’s affection for the “Medieval Model” of the universe and situates Lewis’s work in the context of modern intellectual, cultural, and political history. It demonstrates that Lewis did not simply dismiss the modern “Developmental Model,” as is often assumed, but discriminated carefully among different kinds of evolutionary theory and the manner in which they influenced modern thinking about human nature, social practice, and religious conviction. It also shows that the “unfallen” imaginary worlds that Lewis constructs on Mars and Venus are derived not only from classical and medieval sources but also from the transfiguration or “taking up” of the same modern evolutionary paradigm he is ostensibly putting down. This perspective on the Space Trilogy (an appendix is devoted to the abortive “Dark Tower”) brings out the enduring relevance of Lewis’s “scientific romances” to contemporary concerns on a wide variety of issues, including our relations to the natural world and the other species with whom we share Earth, the ethical and political problems surrounding the emerging revolution in bio-technology, and the seemingly intractable struggle between religious and naturalistic worldviews in the twenty-first century. Far from a simple struggle between an old-fashioned Christian humanism and a newfangled heresy, Lewis’s Space Trilogy is the searching effort of a modern religious apologist to sustain and enrich the former through critical engagement with the latter.
Del Ratzsch
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199557028
- eISBN:
- 9780191701719
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199557028.003.0012
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter attempts to relate science and faith, what right principles of integration should be considered, and figures out how contradictions or apparent conflicts between scientific and religious ...
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This chapter attempts to relate science and faith, what right principles of integration should be considered, and figures out how contradictions or apparent conflicts between scientific and religious statements should be resolved. It begins by exploring how extra-empirical factors (metaphysical and other unexplainable entities and events) function in science for science itself to function. It then explains how these factors affect and have certain implications in various aspects of cognition, and how these, in turn, will affect science and religion.Less
This chapter attempts to relate science and faith, what right principles of integration should be considered, and figures out how contradictions or apparent conflicts between scientific and religious statements should be resolved. It begins by exploring how extra-empirical factors (metaphysical and other unexplainable entities and events) function in science for science itself to function. It then explains how these factors affect and have certain implications in various aspects of cognition, and how these, in turn, will affect science and religion.
Richard S. Weiss
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195335231
- eISBN:
- 9780199868803
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335231.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
This final chapter gives recipes for two siddha medicines, one that is said to have the potential to restore youth and cure all diseases. It then discusses two general features of siddha medical ...
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This final chapter gives recipes for two siddha medicines, one that is said to have the potential to restore youth and cure all diseases. It then discusses two general features of siddha medical discourse. The first is the ambiguous and often ambivalent relationship between science and religion in siddha medical rhetoric. In promoting their medicine, siddha practitioners often join physics and metaphysics, the banal and the extraordinary, in order to ascribe authority to the manifest world of Tamil society and material culture. The chapter then discusses the globalizing aspirations of siddha medicine, arguing that for the time being, siddha vaidyas continue to focus their commercial efforts on local, Tamil audiences.Less
This final chapter gives recipes for two siddha medicines, one that is said to have the potential to restore youth and cure all diseases. It then discusses two general features of siddha medical discourse. The first is the ambiguous and often ambivalent relationship between science and religion in siddha medical rhetoric. In promoting their medicine, siddha practitioners often join physics and metaphysics, the banal and the extraordinary, in order to ascribe authority to the manifest world of Tamil society and material culture. The chapter then discusses the globalizing aspirations of siddha medicine, arguing that for the time being, siddha vaidyas continue to focus their commercial efforts on local, Tamil audiences.
Jonathan B. Edelmann
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199641543
- eISBN:
- 9780191732232
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199641543.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism, Religious Studies
Also returning to the conflict (discussed in 3) between the epistemologies of this Hindu theology and modern science, this chapter examines important figures in Western modern and contemporary ...
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Also returning to the conflict (discussed in 3) between the epistemologies of this Hindu theology and modern science, this chapter examines important figures in Western modern and contemporary science who have seen scientific theory and scientific practice as helpful in illuminating the divine. It compares these thinkers with the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s model (discussed in Chapter 4) for relating scientific and religious theory and practice, arguing there are noteworthy similarities. Taking up the specific issue of suffering in the process of biological evolution, it shows how one might take up an approach wherein the deliverances of science and the Hindu tradition are used to address important philosophical issues.Less
Also returning to the conflict (discussed in 3) between the epistemologies of this Hindu theology and modern science, this chapter examines important figures in Western modern and contemporary science who have seen scientific theory and scientific practice as helpful in illuminating the divine. It compares these thinkers with the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s model (discussed in Chapter 4) for relating scientific and religious theory and practice, arguing there are noteworthy similarities. Taking up the specific issue of suffering in the process of biological evolution, it shows how one might take up an approach wherein the deliverances of science and the Hindu tradition are used to address important philosophical issues.
